#and his entire second run

[thedrowsydoormouse]

I'm not exactly happy about that ending but I am trying to keep an open mind. I've been talking with my mom about it spitballing different directions this could go (only working under the assumption it's only going to be for a single special or a short set of specials like with the 60th) and there are some good idea nuggets that I think could justify that ending. I think I'm going to wait until an official statement or announcement so we know what the new status quo is going to be before I fully make a decision about it. I really want to believe this is more than just a nostalgia bait cash grab but I'm also trying to be realistic that I might not feel comfortable watching anymore at least until we get a new show runner.

[superbat-lmao]

Jason travels to an alternate universe where Bruce only cares about being Batman. He took in each of his kids to serve the mission, not be his children.

Now, faced with alternate versions of his family, Jason has to grapple with the fact that his Bruce does care, that he is his father. Because the man in front of him now, trying to send him home, isn’t even close.

[twinkle-art]

when I tell you to move, you move

[jellyala]

“The Holy Shepherd”

Do you all have time to talk about our lord and savior Saint Vanilla Cookie??? 🙂

Beasts Ancients au belongs to 👉 @cuppajj

[waterfallofspace]

the act of rubbing their nose leading to more sneezing >>>>>>

whether it's against a finger/palm, desperate and harsh, yet not enough to quell the rising itch, the pressure hitting the wrong spot leaving them gasping—

or a single finger, perhaps just the nail, trailing along the bridge, around the rims, down the tip of their nose, coaxing out that stubborn tickle~

[snakeredbirdbatkatana]

Damian's panicking.

It was idiotic the moment he saw Grandfather enter Gotham he should have called Father, or Richard even Todd but instead he went on a one man sucide mission.

He knows that he has nothing to prove he didnt have to track Ra's down egaged him in a fight that he can't win.

Especially when he isn't fighting to kill even back in the league trying his hardest he never measured up, his Grandfather has been and will always be untouchable.

He's down katana lost somewhere down below it's almost fitting another Robin dangling off the top of Wayne enterprises. Pearched at his throat a Katana ready to tear through blade sharpenerd that even with only the slight pressure a drop of blood has already rolled down his neck.

He will die again at the hands of another member of his family he seems immortal until it comes to another Al Ghul.

Tears start to slide down he hears grandfathers cruel laughter at how pathetic his grandson is he closes his eyes he doesn't want to see.

A sharp gasp reaches his ears and than a pained moan.

His eyes snap open.

Ra's Al Ghul stands a blade protruding from his heart that is quickly ripped out as he drops to his knees.

Damian's forces his gaze to move from his grandfathers bleeding corpse to the figure holding the blade.

His brother stands in nothing more than his suit he can't help the relieved sob as he pulls himself further away from the edge and throws himself into Tim's waiting arms.

"How did you find me, how did you get here so fast," he forces out through the sobs that's are starting to hurt his chest.

Tim pulls away enough to force Damian's head to gaze up.

"Oh sweetheart, Dami your literally on top of my building, Nevermind that kiddo I'll always find you."

He collapses back into his brothers arms burrowing as far as he can into his chest he doesn't have the energy to do much else other than cling.

He feels Tim shift him so he's carrying Damian as the adrenaline runs out. He doesn't try to fight sleep as he dozes off feeling safer than he ever has with the brother who saved him.

His brother who must have run from whatever meeting he was in without any armor to rescue his little brother. He wasn't saved by Red Robin but by Tim Drake and for once he can't imagine how he ever wished for a different one.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 168

So. Apparently halfas are like phoenixes or something, which Danny would’ve really liked to know. 

See, usually with ghosts if they’re forced to retreat to their cores they reform as was, but apparently, since they’re still partially living, schrodinger's people and all that, halfas have to regrow their body from scratch. At least that’s what he’s understanding from Frostbite. 

But how come he has to deal with it? It’s Dan’s fault for trying to pull such a stunt! Oh, it’s either him or Vlad? Well fuck, he might have calmed down and is going to therapy in both the living realm and the Zone, but he’s waaay not equipped to raise a child except for like, monetarily wise. 

Well dammit, how long will this core incubation thing last, he has his new job in… let him check which offer he accepted again… He has his new job in Coast City that he needs to finish packing for and then all the rest of the stuff to do. 

What do you mean it’ll take months?! He doesn’t have months?! Urgh, fine. At least being a mortician isn’t that exciting, nor dangerous. Just hand him Dan’s core and he’ll figure things out for the living side of things. He’s sure Tucker and Sam wouldn’t be against helping, if only to try and claim favorite aunt or uncle spots. 

[andi-o-geyser]

“we’re doing another groundbreaking storyline with batman fighting his greatest enemy, the joker-” pack it up.

[kalied0skull]

I wanna see your take on what Steve’s dad and mom would look like 🥸

like sleazy zoot suiter x the most gorgeous pachucha you could ever imagine

for some little headcanons i just like to imagine

his dad is the kind to obnoxiously go "ey? huh? fuck you say? speak up, cholo, come on. use your voice." at steve ALL THE TIME.

his mother smelled of sickly sweet coconut and summer sea salt, she was from the west coast before she got dragged to tulsa by her mister.

they actually had quite the happy marriage and relationship, it just got very messy. his mother was a sickly woman, and his father is a crazy bastard. didn't mix well with alcohol.

his mom would let her hair down and she'd shake her curls in front of steve's face, it was his favorite thing about her—her hair. so full of beautiful swirls and smelled of the sweetest soaps

their designs DEFINITELY lean into my belief and headcanon of hispanic steve, i mean just— like— I LOVE IT MAN okay...

i imagine steve's dad has a nice job like a lawyer, i mean he pays steve in practically 30 bucks every other day — he can't get it from nowhere, i imagine he'd be similar to rusty-james' dad in rumble fish. an alcoholic, incredibly smart, and confusing.

[symbologic]

Do you ever wonder if deep down, in Luffy's heart, he doesn't let himself worry about Zoro because he genuinely can't? Because the alternative is simply too horrifying to contemplate for even a second?

Think about how awful it was for Luffy when he lost someone very dear to him at Marineford. This person had even promised — promised! — Luffy that he would never die. That he would never leave him alone. Yet this person who was supposed to be Luffy's constant was ripped away from him, and Luffy was powerless to stop it.

"Devastated" doesn't even come close to describing the abject despair Luffy felt at that moment. He completely shut down and went catatonic.

[july-19th-club]

everybody in every post is reading helly/helena's crush on mark like it's a two way thing and i JUST dont see it. i saw a post suggesting mark took advantage of helly by having sex with helena. and we're not taking into account the fact that helena impersonated someone he trusts to have sex with him? one of these people is doing some dubcon stuff and it's not mark s

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

As much as I joke, I should note that I don't actually see Bill as a sweet little innocent baby who couldn't do no harm.

It's hard to explain but: Do I still feel bad that I now know he didn't intend to destroy his dimension and carries that grief, and that truly he's a desperate person trying to find him and his friends a home to stay in so they don't disintegrate when the edge of the world approaches them? Yeah. Does that mean id be totally fine if he had taken over earth and turned it into the nightmare realm? HELL NO! Get that dorito bastard away from my dirt!!!

Do I feel bad that he's suffering in theraprism? Kinda, yeah. Do I find it hilarious that he's suffering in theraprism. Absolutely. Is that a question? That's fucking awesome. These coexist simultaneously in my mind.

[britcision]

Dungeon Meshi omegaverse headcanons because I can

1) the different human folks have different versions and different degrees but we’re gonna focus on the elves because I want to

2) afab alphas and amab omegas are just a thing that happens, it’s pretty normal and not considered worth commenting on unless you’re really insular, so while there are some sexist stereotypes (like that afab alphas are more attentive parents, although not as good as any omega) it’s not on the “male omega bad” side

It’s about 20% of the alpha/omega population (and betas make up about 60% of the human population so 8% of people total), so not hugely common but way more common than red hair and only a little less than being left handed

Some amab omegas can carry children (especially with magical assistance) and it’s actually a little easier for afab alphas to sire children, since that’s a one time output rather than a prolonged physical process

You also get things like secondary sex homosexuality (alpha-for-alpha gay, ditto omegas) which are basically ignored anyway unless someone’s fussing about bloodlines, and difficult cases like alpha-presenting-omega; an omega who reads like an alpha in scent and all other aspects except when they’re on heat

That’s hard to detect before the cycle actually starts and causes rampant excitement every time, but since alphas being with other alphas isn’t considered noteworthy except in high society, it’s also only a problem around the cycle

3) just like they don’t have sexual dimorphism, there’s no visible external differences between elves in secondary sex either

They’re more about magic than physical force, so you might be able to tell the difference based on their magical specialties (that’s how elves claim they do it but it’s bullshit they are lying)

This often confuses other folks who do; tallmen alphas are physically larger and more muscular (Falin’s an alpha) and omegas are smaller and slimmer, but all the elves are small and slim so tallmen often think they’re all omegas this is not helped by

4) almost all the Canaries are omegas; service is a doubly beneficial arrangement for noble families, who offer their children to show their loyalty just like canon… and to keep inconvenient extra bloodlines from cropping up if those extra omegas have kids

All of the wardens are omegas (except possibly Flamela; this is actually another reason why she’s not allowed into dangerous dungeons) and most of the prisoners are too, although occasionally alphas are allowed to serve

This is not considered a risk because while alphas are more aggressive, elves also consider them less capable leaders since they’re more likely to lose their heads and act rashly when riled up (like when Izutsumi was a kobold from the changelings and had to be stopped from fighting til she died) and just generally less capable, so an alpha convict with their magic bound isn’t considered a serious threat to a capable omega warden

Alphas also don’t necessarily fight to the death, since there’s all the posturing and fighting for position

Elf omegas, on the other hand, will tear your fucking throat out at the first sign of violence because if a fight gets to them it needs to be ended immediately to protect the babies

They have absolutely weaponized this against the demon and the dungeons by intentionally putting their omegas in combat situations

Alpha prisoners are usually only assigned to a single warden for the duration of their service, because they tend to get overprotective of their omega squad-mates and don’t handle personnel shifts well

5) The wardens get sterilized as part of their training, the prisoners are required to be on birth control for the duration of their service but can also request sterilization - birth control’s usually by magical implant so it’s not a huge inconvenience but listen if you want that ute yote it’s yoten

6) Heat cycles absolutely do sync up between themselves and with rut cycles, and the squads get mandatory downtime for a month on either side; luckily they’re elves so they’re on multi-annual cycles rather than seasonal

(Elves who find out how often short-lived omegas go into heat tend to react with shock and sympathy and an immediate “ooooh this is why you die so early”)

(More than one squad have accidentally maimed their alpha if they have a surprise heat)

How a squad handles group heat is up to them, suppressants are part of the basic gear, as are knotting toys, and there’s a whole industry of “heat hotels” where any human single omegas can go to ride out a heat safely either alone with toys or with vetted beta staff (on birth control) of their choosing - the Canaries semi-regularly take them over and occasionally incite orgies because while the heat demands a knot what elves accept as dominance is magical power, not position, so the strongest arcanist in a squad usually reads as an “alpha” to other humans despite their actual sexes

And since there’s no actual rules that omegas can’t hook up for a cycle at the heat house, so long as everyone arrives and agrees before they go into heat it’s a “the more the merrier” situation

They also sync up between different types of humans, but elves sync very slowly and have such long cycles almost no one notices

For no godly reason gnomes sync the fastest but they have relatively mild cycles and don’t seem to mind

Fuck it cycle table:

Dwarves - 6 month cycle - 1 week rut/heat

Elves - 2-3 year cycle - 2 weeks rut/heat

Gnomes - 4 month cycle - 5 days rut/heat

Half-foots(feet?) - 2 month cycle - 3 days rut/heat

Oni - 2 month cycle - 5 days rut/heat

Tall-men - 2 month cycle - 5-7 days rut/heat

7) Mithrun’s squad are extra goddamn protective of him because his cycle also got broken and doesn’t sync properly, but he deadass will not notice when he’s on heat and just continues as usual, while radiating pheromones. He also will not take suppressants any more than he’ll drink or eat

Luckily he also almost never actually goes onto heat, so he just vibes and trains while everyone else is on their heat break and occasionally gets impatient and starts bar fights

Lycion’s been a permanent squad member despite not being an alpha (he’s a beta but the werewolf gets a knot anyway sooooo he’s busy on heat breaks) because he can smell when Mithrun’s going onto heat ahead of time, way before anyone else can

Mithrun’s gone into heat twice since rejoining the Canaries. Cithis, Otta, and Fleki bitch about this constantly with varying degrees of envy, right up until the next time it happens out of the blue and they have to drag his dumb ass out of a dungeon because literally no one was prepared

Otta’s not even an omega she’s a beta too so she uses their heat breaks to flirt with half-foot women which is why she has enough time to date despite being a convict death squad member

(And yeah she’ll “help out” any half-foot lady omegas if they’re not actually already in heat when they arrive at a house the squad’s taken over and can hold a conversation first cuz while technically everyone else can still go through their heat alone and ignore the elves…

Well they’re loud, they’re expansive, Fleki is allergic to personal space, even in heat Cithis has enough top energy to dominate a city block, and Lycion only has one knot and will occasionally need to sleep - more than the heated omegas. They like sharing and there are no consequences provided the hotel has a room big enough)

Fleki will absolutely still use her familiar while she’s on heat and she will not remember to tell anyone she’s doing it, but since she basically just flies away until the next wave demands she get fucked again it’s not all that different from taking a nap from anyone else’s perspective

(Flying in heat is nowhere near as good as flying on shrooms but it does still beat reality)

(Everyone. Everyone has asked her if she’s fucked in the bird. Absolutely everyone. And she never specifies but makes absolutely filthy and biologically unlikely insinuations.

She absolutely did try it once. And since her familiar has genitals at her own discretion, and didn’t google bird genitals before hand, results were Mid)

Cithis has been denied access - or have had people attempt to deny her access anyway - to more than one heat house because absolutely no one who is not an elf believes she’s not an alpha without proof

All the elves have Elf Twink Disease so their alphas aren’t buff and macho anyway and everyone knows it, so her sheer Step On Me Please energy has gotten the whole squad into trouble

(She blatantly refuses to do anything about this and will often make the situation worse for fun or profit until Mithrun tells her to stop)

8) half elves like Marcille have the extremely exciting and unfortunate bonus of potentially being crosses in secondary sex too, just like the non-linear aging - something about the long-lived/shorter-lived magic combo and the elves’ own permutations in particular mean that other human-alpha and elf-beta/omega sometimes happen on the same gene, and other human-omega and elf-beta/alpha is also more likely than elf-alpha and other human-alpha coming together

Some half elves get lucky and get double beta, Marcille did not and got beta-omega (which is at least easier than alpha-omega, the rarest combo but hey if you’re flexible or magically inclined with that one you can kinda just go fuck yourself)

This is why she gets super over-protective of the people she cares about (see: get back in the kitchen while I take over the world), but doesn’t really have any kind of self preservation instincts or a desire not to run face first into danger and explode it

She’s never had a heat cycle and if she’s lucky she might never get one, so long as the beta side stays dominant

But Falin’s an alpha and possibly the person who activated Marcille’s omega side to get that over-protectiveness in the first place, so if (when) they do mate Marcille is gonna learn some fun and exciting things about her body

(Toshiro’s an omega, but his family insisted on raising him like an alpha anyway because Oldest Son. Falin was the one to actually tell him he was an omega, because Maizuru was ordered not to

This is part of why he’s so incredibly jealous of Laios, who is an actual alpha as well as autistic as hell, so Shuro’s not only jealous of his complete disregard for social rules, he’s also exceedingly jealous that all of the “alpha” stuff he has to work incredibly hard to fake comes to Laios completely naturally

Laios had no idea Shuro was an omega at all (possibly Nakamoto family scent blockers, possibly Laios Not Paying Attention) and has actually been idolizing Shuro as the Manliest Best Alpha To Ever Alpha - like all them flashbacks of Shuro standing between downed Laios and danger

Maybe Laios doesn’t find out until after Falin’s revived successfully. It blows his mind. Toshiro weeps in frustration.)

9) fuck it it’s official, alpha Flamela, that’s why her twin was taken (twin was an omega, elves still think alphas are too impulsive and hot headed to rule) and Flamela wasn’t stopped from running off to join the Canaries

They did try to skip the sterilizing step with her, cuz while the coal black skin definitively doesn’t reliably pass from parent to child there’s still a chance her kids would have better odds of inheriting it

Flamela lost her shit when she found out she was being treated differently from other wardens (doing other elven alphas absolutely no favours about that “too impulsive” thing because she genuinely didn’t even notice that what was happening was that she wasn’t being given invasive and permanently life altering often nonconsensual surgery) and threatened to do it to herself if they wouldn’t do her

Someone suggested they fake it, put her under, make the cut, leave everything alone so she just got a scar, someone else pointed out she might be slightly less knife happy afterwards, the smartest person in the room pointed out she would be Exceedingly Fucking Knife Happy if she ever found out and possibly kill them all

She was sterilised at her own insistence but her genetic materials (eggs and sperm why not) were stored rather than discarded in case she changes her mind

This has also alienated her from the other wardens because not only is she the only one who actually volunteered to be a Canary, she volunteered for the whole thing and genuinely doesn’t get why any of them are unhappy about it

Rut isn’t all that fun and she doesn’t think heat sounds good either, since her default position with people is distrust and keeping them at arm’s length, so she always rides hers out alone and assumes others will too - but both sound way way way better to her than having to carry or raise a child

She’s not cruel or aggressive about it but she’s about as tactful as a rhinoceros and just gets loudly confused, so it’s not worth trying to confide in her or bond over the extra level of being discarded by their families

(And since she hates gossip and will aggressively curtail it, she only finds out what anyone else on her squad does for heat if she actually has to help arrange it)

She was so offended to find out she’d still have rut cycles after surgery. The one thing absolutely every other warden can agree with her on

Most elf alphas are actually significantly more level headed and stable than Flamela, she still has her entirely independent emotional baggage but she is what all the elven stereotypes say an alpha is

There’s some real world racist bs about Black women and especially darker skinned Black women being less feminine, but it’s bullshit and fuck that it’s illegal here, alpha women are just a thing that happens and it has nothing to do with gender

Flamela’s not especially feminine either by elf standards, but that’s her decision and she is beauty, she is grace, she will stab you in the face and you’d deserve it if you commented

10) communication pixies are affected by their maker’s heat, but not by getting anything similar themselves; it’s an intentional part of the spell, the pixie gets all sleepy and “drunk” and will not connect any calls without a specific code word, because absolutely no one wanted heat-sex pixie butt dials

This isn’t just an elf thing but it is in the elf-magic version of the spell; if you make a pixie with gnome-magic instead there’s a 75% chance it will also go dozy during your heat buuuuut a 25% chance it just keeps going as normal

General consensus is that the ephemeral will of magic either can’t tell when humans go into heat or considers the occasional magic butt dial necessary to the balance of the universe

A lot of older gnomes just plain don’t care about any of it and think it’s a bit funny when anyone else makes such a big fuss, since it’s just another part of life

(If Falin ever makes a pixie you KNOW it stays active during her rut you KNOW Marcille gets a butt dial dear gods is this how the Farcille confession happens in this AU)

11) orcs and kobolds don’t actually have secondary sexes by dint of not being human (wrong number of bones) and tend to consider the whole thing a little weird, but not their problem

Some orcs suspect the whole alpha-omega thing is why humans get violently territorial for basically no reason, and the sympathetic ones tend to be very gentle with someone once they learn they’re an alpha or omega

Big “oh you poor thing that sounds so difficult, let’s make sure you don’t get over excited” energy

———

I’ll add more later if I come up with anything else, but by all means hop into my sand box and play with anything you like!

A bunch of other characters and their alignments in no particular order:

Kabru - beta, but one of his only decent spells is to fake either alpha or omega pheromones at will. He’ll play any of the roles to get what he wants and what he thinks will serve him best

(He almost always plays omega with elves because 1) they don’t respect alphas the way most other humans do and 2) they’re gonna read him as a child anyway, so having specific “adult” pheromones might occasionally sway them to respect him a little more, but they’re also more likely to subconsciously protect him

He tried alpha on Mithrun when they were alone in the dungeon for all of 15 minutes before determining Mithrun couldn’t tell the difference

(Mithrun could he just doesn’t care))

Namari - alpha, works well with usually being the party tank, but as a dwarf her instincts are more “provide for needs” than “fight off enemies” which is why she loves armour and wants other people to wear it

Senshi - omega, he’s going to see the babies fed by any means necessary (but yeah it’s part of why his mining crew didn’t let him fight the griffin, he hadn’t fully hit his second puberty but they Had Suspicions)

However, since he lived alone most of his life (and was surrounded by alphas before that) he presents almost entirely as an alpha, and unless he hits heat no non-dwarfs will ever notice he isn’t

There’s not a huge difference between dwarf alpha, beta, and omegas anyway, but the alphas tend more towards crafts and making or procuring physical items to see to their loved ones’ needs while the omegas are more focused on acts of service

(Physically they’re just all Like That, like the elves)

Every dwarf who has ever met Senshi clocked him as an alpha in the first five minutes, and clocked him equally hard as an omega ten minutes later and had some mild cognitive dissonance. None of them mention it because that’s Rude

Izutsumi - alpha cat, hates you all

Chilchuck - tallest skinniest half foot omega you ever did see. Has adopted his entire union since he doesn’t see his girls anymore. His wife was a beta and the only reason she got them in the “divorce” was the girls had already moved out

(She moved in with Puckpatti)

Chilchuck is constantly low-grade losing his shit about it

Maizuru - omega, deeply dislikes how Toshiro’s father has treated him and does genuinely believe deep down that an omega like Toshiro might be a better leader specifically because he’s more empathic and considerate than their society’s demanded alpha behaviour

She will be miffed to be told the elves agree with her though

Rin - beta, accidentally presents as an omega because she picked it up in self defence while living with the elves. She does not like it but she does tend to keep herself closed off, avoid skin contact, and comes off as trying too hard not to seem meek, so people with opinions on strangers’ sexes assume she’s an omega who escaped a bad situation

(They’re not fully wrong, she hates that they’re not)

Kaka and Kiki - Kaka’s an omega, Kiki’s a beta but she intentionally presents as an alpha to keep anyone from noticing or saying shit about her brother

If she’s loud and noticeable, they won’t wonder why he’s shyer and quiet

(Kaka 1000% imprinted on Namari the first time she saved his life she is his big strong alpha he is a helpless fucking puppy so even though he’s self conscious about his height he can’t help wanting her to like his legs

Unfortunately for him Namari’s gay as hell and Kiki’s extremely into her as well and he wants his twin to be happy so he’ll be pining forever and make do with a familial alpha bond)

(Namari will never know she coulda had her pick)

Mikbell - beta cuck and a scab

Holm - the only actual alpha on Kabru’s team, has definitely noticed him switching up the pheromones and he mostly doesn’t care, he thinks that secondary-sex-fluidity is actually a really good quality in a leader (it shows he respects all of them and acknowledges the strengths they all have)

But when it comes to his sister Nope Nope Nope buster don’t you dare seduce her with some mocked up alpha juice

His sister is also an alpha but she’s alpha-for-alpha gay and gender bisexual and he’s not having it

Daya - omega, but prefers to present as an alpha because she’s actually just not that comfortable with the stereotypical omega “role”

(Again for dwarves, it’s mostly “will do caretaking” over “will procure necessary items”, but her birth clan were heavy traditionalists who considered an omega’s primary job to be “be pregnant” so she’s tossed the whole situation)

(Her partner is an alpha and oh boy did he have to work to prove he was nothing like the boys back home. He’s fully happy to be the caretaker while she brings home the bacon and she loves him for that

Most dwarves will assume he’s the omega unless told otherwise, and they’re both very comfortable with that on the extremely rare occasion that it comes up since Island dwarves usually don’t care anyway)

Kuro - kobold, not his problem, but oh boy he’s adopted Mikbell as his puppy and is gonna do his best taking care of this man

He’s fully aware Mik’s a mature adult (despite how often he pretends to be a kid to fuck with people), he can smell his pheromones, he just believes Mikbell needs a father or at least older brother figure to guide him more than just a buddy

(He and Kabru also suspect Mik might be into non sexual (probably?) age play, since he claims he acts like a kid to fuck over assholes who assume half-foots can’t be real adults, but he does it A Lot and with joy and fervour)

(Mikbell can never learn this)

Grandpa Tansu - cranky lil alpha gnome

Granny Floke - also a lil alpha gnome, they’re also alpha-for-alpha gay, but she likes watching her husband get all loud and up in arms so she doesn’t bother getting involved much

(Full Madame Giry from the good Phantom of the Opera productions, she only has to say one word to put her foot down but she actually is a nice smiling little old lady… which makes it scarier when she does it)

Tade - alpha oni, but in oni omegas and afabs are actually much bigger so she’s still pretty small for an oni (bigger than amab alphas though)

This does tend to confuse pretty much everyone else but those little buggers come out BIG and HORNED and it’s just better all around to have more space for the lil niblets

This is why Marcille’s oni form was head and shoulders too big to be seen standing next to her party she’d’ve been around a foot and a half taller than Tade because I said so

Thistle - oh the saddest most broken lil elf omega, he was in a bad way before Delgal’s dad died and then when Delgal did the “only you can save us we’re all gonna die” Thistle reverse-pioneered the Canaries by going into omega-murder-mode so hard he dungeoned an entire kingdom

And since there was not a single alpha older than him anywhere to be found he just never got to turn that off (if only someone scruffed the little bastard idk if that’s an omegaverse thing but the imagery is peak)

Imma headcanon he never actually had a cycle by dint of not finishing elf-puberty before he went Kingdom In A Bottle and stopped aging but honestly any flavour of fuckery and whenever you think he stopped aging is all good

(Since not only was Yaad born post dungeon, he grew to young adulthood and other people did age, they just didn’t die, so aging was for sure happening for like 20 years post dive)

Winged Lion - the alpha and the omega solely for the joke

If you can think of anyone else or if you have any questions lemme know and I’ll spin something off the dome for ya! (This totally wasn’t prompted by me nearly having the first full chapter of. Something. Ready to go. 👀)

If anyone else wants to chop and screw with any bits of this for any reason go wild and all I ask is a tag in because I like free candy as much as anyone else. Despite Farcille commentary it’s technically ship agnostic because honestly that’s the least interesting part of an omegaverse AU for me I’m here to get weird with sex and gender roles and cultural variance

I haven’t actually played in this sand pit much before so we can all thank/blame Omega Jason Todd week for finally tipping my interest over by giving me new levels of fuckery, we stan a 6’ omega built like a tank

[junonomenon]

peter nureyev is my ideal man because in terms of boyfriend grades he gets 10000 in enthusiasm and drama and a zero in literally everything else. a more well adjusted person would say that math does not check out. a more well adjusted person would be WRONG

[quatregats]

Thinking a lot of thoughts about Hornblower's relationships with Barbara and Maria as a metaphor for his larger relationship to social mobility and ambition, and I think there's actually a lot there - not sure if it was intentional, but I do think that whether intentionally or inadvertently, Forester did an interesting job with the parallels.

Quick note beforehand that some of this is based on my constant brief paging through C. Northcote Parkinson's Hornblower "biography", which, while I absolutely abhor his interpretation of Hornblower, gives even more food for thought on this point. I'm also leaning more into his interpretation of Hornblower's background and childhood, as opposed to the TV show's, so it might not work if you're coming from the TV show's perspective.

Parkinson takes Forester's comment that Hornblower was a "doctor's son" to mean that he was the son of an apothecary, rather than a physician like in the show. I'm not a historian of the period, so I would be hard-pressed to actually try to fit Hornblower's father within the 18th-century framework of medical practice, but either way, given his awkwardness around upper-class life and that he seems to have grown up in rural Kent, I think that Parkinson's claim that he was the son of an apothecary, rather than a physician, does have some reasonable foundation, or is at least equally plausible (to me) as the show's.

Hornblower struggles with poverty through most of the series, especially the first half, but even when he is barely scraping by, such as at the start of Lieutenant, this does not seem to be an abnormal state; and when he finally arrives at wealth and success, he constantly wishes to go back to the days when he was a penniless lieutenant, so from this we might also surmise that he did not come from wealth. (I'm also comparing especially to Jack Aubrey, who, while he admittedly makes a hash of coming into large amounts of money, and who also lives perfectly happily on very little, is clearly quite comfortable being the "lord of the manor" by comparison.)

One of the biggest changes in the second half of the series (from The Happy Return/Beat to Quarters onward) is that Hornblower's career comes into fruition; he becomes a decorated Captain, a member of the landed gentry, a Knight of Bath, a Peer, and finally an admiral, and marries into an enormously influential family. He's constantly in conflict about this, until he isn't: he wants to become someone powerful and important, except that he doesn't like the role once he gets it, and constantly wishes about the old days, then feels guilty for wishing for them. Most importantly, he seems to become less and less himself, his mental narrative getting more and more distorted as he tries to mold himself into the person he thinks he wants to be.

I don't think this is a particular novel interpretation, but I think that in light of this, the contrast between his marriage to Maria and his marriage to Barbara is very interesting. If he was an apothecary's son, his and Maria's marriage would make a decent amount of sense - they'd be from similar social backgrounds, and probably a reasonable match, if Hornblower's career had continued as expected. Hornblower feels comfortable around Maria at the start of their friendship and the very beginning of their marriage in a way that mirrors his comfort with the life he's living at that point - which is to say that he clearly knows and understands what's expected of him and how to interact, in clear contrast with later books. But on the other hand, for all that he originally does love Maria, Hornblower comes to find her to be coarse, unrefined, and boring, and feel that she is not good enough for the person he wants to become. It's at the point when he starts to feel that he's moved passed Maria that he begins to take on his new, ambitious, performative persona.

On the other hand, Hornblower feels stiff and uncomfortable around Barbara from the beginning of their relationship, notably for reasons of class, and even in later books, consistently sounds intimidated by her poise and upper-class untouchability. With Maria he doesn't feel enough for her; with Barbara he feels too much, an almost uncouth sentimentality. He craves Barbara's status like a man drowning, but can't hold up under the weight of what it would mean. They have very strong intellectual chemistry, but socially they are a disaster of a couple, and yet nonetheless, Hornblower continues with the marriage because it feels to him like the thing he ought to do, just as he ought to become squire of Smallbridge. He's so viscerally uncomfortable with his position in the later books in a way he wasn't even at the height of his earlier miseries, but he refuses to let himself admit that his ambitions might have led him astray.

I think it's also interesting that the relationship which Hornblower arguably finds the most fulfilling (or rather, it was written very poorly if Forester wanted to make it feel fulfilling for the reader, but nonetheless it was clearly meant to be the most fulfilling for Hornblower) is his relationship with Marie, who sits at a similar odd juncture to him. In the text, Forester says outright that Marie fulfills Hornblower's interest in upper-class women (ambition) while not intimidating him, yet still being a satisfying intellectual partner. Nonetheless, just as Marie and Hornblower can never actually end up together, Hornblower can never actually be comfortable with his position, and no matter how many times he tries to find solace in her, he is eventually forced to continue down the path that he began, making up with Barbara and fully taking up the mantle of Admiral and Peer of the Realm.

In short, I think that watching the way in which Hornblower's relationship with Maria evolves over the course of the early books and the way in which his relationship with Barbara takes up after that ends up being a very neat parallel to his own ambitions and class identity. With Maria he is at home, but bored and restless; with Barbara he gets everything that he wants, but feels like a fish out of water. I think that particular parallel is part of the particular tragedy of Hornblower - he can't ever be satisfied with the person he was, or the person he's become. But I think that adding in aspects of extreme class difference - even more class difference than the general trends of social mobility during this period - also helps to elucidate the fundamental tension which drives Hornblower forward as a character. The world he came from was too small for him; the world in which he moves now is far too big; but there's no in-between option. He has to choose what he wants to be, and sacrifice some part of himself in order to do that, and in light of this reading of him, I think that there's a lot of interesting dilemmas to be raised.

[leftshiftwashere]

Rare moment when I don't post something related to half life at all

but!

I made some skins based off my rain world and days union crossover so I present to you.....

The Kingpin and the Observer!

Here's a bunch of sketches with them I drew before

Never thought I'd ever be figuring out rain world sprites to bring those creatures to life but here we are